What’s going on guys Its Jordan de Jong here and today I want to talk about how to get more information out of a real estate agent, this video is kind of a follow on from my previous video on how to get the lowest price and flows on from the same book by Chris Voss called Never Split the Difference,… So if you haven’t watched that video you can go ahead and watch that one up here, but for this video we are going to be discussing some other concepts Chris talks about in his book when it comes to negotiating, specifically making your counterpart feel comfortable, like you understand them and befriending them as much as possible, at the end of this video we’ll also go over some information points that are very useful to know before making an offer. Unfortunately, most real estate agents get a bad rap, we instantly think they are trying to suck us try of every last dollar and so we almost always put our guard up, which in turn makes them react in the same way and you can almost feel the tension in the atmosphere. On top of this, there are always bad eggs in every industry, we can’t help that, There are so many agents coming in and out of the industry, this is why we have so much diversity in the quality of good real-estate agents and in reality only 25% of them are making a real living, meaning the remaining agents have this sort of fight or flight mentality to make it. Lastly, to put yourself in the shoes of an agent, they might get 100 phone calls for a property, and there is only going to be one buyer, they get tired of people really quickly and for the ones that are somewhat serious, they always want to pay the least amount they can, where their vendor always wants to most they can get for the property. And this is what the agent will always tell you, I’ve been employed by the vendor to get the best possible price for their property, but ultimately if the property doesn’t sell they don’t make a commission, and the more wasted time on that property the less valuable the commission becomes in relation to their time spent working on the sale. Obviously, an agent wants to do the right thing by their client, and with great results, they generally get more work in the same area, but if you think about it logically, and extra $50,000 at their going rate of 2.5% is only $1,250, of which is broken between the agency and the actual selling agent, so they might only see an extra $500-$800 dollars, put that into the perspective of trying to negotiate an extra $50,000. So if we break this down into one simple statement, “an agent wants to earn a commission for selling a property in a timely manner”, great now we fully understand what an agent wants, we can work around this to find out as much information as possible about the property itself. We could also add in here, “To get the best result for their client, build a good repour and get repeat business from other recommendations in the area” and although this may seem like it should be included in their wants, it only really applies to that top 25% of agents who are making a living, the other 75% are generally hunting down their next commission. A lot of people get confused here about trying to figure out what the vendor wants instead of what the agent wants, or get information about the vendor, and this is somewhat true, we would want to know things such as the vendors are getting a divorce and it’s a rushed sale, or they are 8 months pregnant and need to upgrade as soon as possible. Really though, unless we go and knock on their door or the neighbor's door or sit in your car for an hour after the open home to see who’s walking back into the property to try and get this information, all of which are very creepy, we can only really get this info from the agent, so now we know what the agents want, how can we befriend them and help them get what they want? We could take the approach of asking them flat out, “What is the reason for sale” but now the agent knows what you want and will most likely reframe from giving you the answer directly, they can easily deter the actual reason without giving you full details, from our pregnant example before they could say something like ”ahh they are outgrowing this place and need to upgrade”. At this point in the discussion, their body language might seem irritated and their tone is generally short and to the point, forcing you to feel like it’s time to move on to the next question, I have often felt like this in similar situations but Chris introduces a term in the book called mirroring which is a phenomenal tool the keep prodding at the question. In Chris’s words, for the FBI, a “mirror” is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting. So continuing on from our example of the agent saying ”ahh they are outgrowing this place and need to upgrade”. You could literally just stand there and repeat the last three words, “Need to upgrade?” this changes the context of the conversation, makes the agent feel like you’re actually listening to them and forces them to keep talking. The key result here would be if the agent said something like “Oh yeah, they have a couple of kids and need some additional rooms to expand” again remember mirroring is picking the keywords, “ah additional rooms, are they planning on having another one?” this is being a bit more direct with the question but it's kind of hard to avoid at that point. I would stand there and mirror as much as possible, letting the agent “vomit information” as Chris says without asking direct questions, as soon as you hit a nerve or pull them out of the trance of being comfortable with you, they retract and put the defenses up, if this happens its best to fizzle off the conversation, remain polite and thank them for their time. This works well for getting information about the vendor, but what about the current market interest? This is the information an agent can give you, but again I would avoid asking them directly giving away your real intentions, we’ll use a combination of befriending and mirroring to get them to vomit as much information as they can here. Again, their wants statement is “an agent wants to earn a commission for selling a property in a timely manner” so let’s play on their timely manner aspect, in the scenario where an open home is quite, we might start a conversation like “They got you up for an 8 am open home that’s this quite, hope all your other opens are more productive today.” Notice I said “Hope” here rather than “I hope”, when you say I it triggers a reaction in the brain that makes them feel like your trying to do something for you, putting up that defensive mechanism. Again, we are not focusing on this property, in particular, making the context about their daily plan, which they are most likely thinking about instead of the actual open home. at a busy open home, I would try and catch them mid inspection times as at the start and end they are usually worried about talking to everyone, and we could approach it with something like “man, its flat out in here, hope all your other opens today don’t take up this much of your time”. Essentially, we would be hoping for some response about the history of the open home, such as “Yeah this campaign started off pretty quiet, but it's ramping up now” or “Nah this one is always the busiest one of the day”, and from here we mirror for more information, “Busiest of the day?”. From here we keep dancing around with mirrors until we fully understand a pain point or another want from the agent, trying to trigger a response of “That’s right” when your adversaries say, “That’s right,” they feel they have assessed what you’ve said and pronounced it as correct of their own free will. They embrace it. Use a summary to trigger a “that’s right.” The response, For example, if they continue talking about how busy their day is and how they only have 5 minutes in between open homes you could say something like, “Sounds like you could use more time in between your open homes.” or “How annoying would a last-minute attendee be if you need to be at the next one in a rush.” If we didn’t really get all the information we needed out of the agent during the mirroring conversation, this is the best time to ask something more direct “well, trying not to waste any more of your time, do you think you could send me a contract of sale, and, has there been many sent out so far? ” After a “That’s Right” response they should feel the most comfortable with you and that you understand them, and hopefully be more open and give you accurate information, at the end of the day you want to be the person that the agent wants to sell the property to, and we can do this by befriending them in a legitimate way, by smiling, giving compliments and understanding their needs, instead of instantly putting our guard up. Some common information that’s very useful to know before you start marking offers is: How many contracts of sales have been given out, this lets you know how many really interested parties there are, this, along with how many building and pest inspections have been done, and in some states, how many registered bidders there are, this will give you a wholistic number of how many other parties you may be up against. Other insightful information is the reason for sale which leads into the real question of is there a deadline for the sale, deadlines always create a sense of urgency and we can use this to our advantage, another critical question to get a deadline is how long has it been sitting on the market for, the longer it’s been on the market the more desperate everyone is to sell. If it’s been sitting on the market for a while, it’s worth asking if the property has gone to auction before, if so, did it pass in, what where the auction numbers, outcomes, and previously advertised price, this will give us great insights on the vendor's expectations for the price, or, if it’s relatively new on the market has there been any talk of offers, and if so at what price point. As always, seek your own professional financial, legal, taxation & property investment advice for your current situation, these videos are just my opinion and general in nature and should never be considered personal advice. Until next time, happy house hunting.

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